New to Regent..Navigator vs Mariner?

[Maineac]

We're interested in giving Regent a try March 08 Caribbean.

Navigator has a 14 night cruise on the 14th.

Mariner has a 10 night cruise on the 4th.

The itinerary on the Navigator is more interesting but I'm concerned with the limited restaurant options and some of the negative posts I've read.

This will be the first time in many years that DH and I will be "alone" and our first time on a luxury line.

For us, the itinerary is secondary to the ship. So, If you had to choose, would it be M or N?

Your opinions are appreciated.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

I have nothing negative to say about Navigator except for the lack of restaurant options. It's a lovely ship. We did a shorter version of that itinerary last year. I loved the ship.

 

I have not been on Mariner. But I hear it's a lot like Voyager. I've been on Voyager, and will be on her again this December.

 

But if I had to choose between N and V, I would choose V every time.

[dougburns]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Navigator. If you're concerned about vibration go for a suite just forward of the Atrium. If the itinerary appeals to you more than that of the Mariner, then do it. When we do the Mariner we get a Cat C penthouse and it's absolutely fantastic. Our favorite of all the Regent ships is the Voyager, on which we get a standard suite. The food is virtually the same quality on all of the Regent ships. That is based on 13 cruises on all of their ships.

[DoctorTom]

Our first Regent cruise was in Alaska on the Mariner in 2005, and our most recent was on the Navigator in the Mediterranean this summer. Both are wonderful ships, but I preferred the Mariner, mainly because its larger size provided for more options for public spaces. The Observation Lounge was one of my favorite places on the Mariner, and I missed not being able to sit and watch where we were going on the Navigator.

 

I liked the greater variety of dining options on the Mariner, but I think the quality of the food was slightly better on the Navigator. The Portofinos' concept just didn't do it for me on the Navigator, but I enjoyed La Verandah's Italian steakhouse on the Mariner.

 

I'd gladly sail on the Naviagor again, but If I had to choose, I'd pick the Mariner, unless the itinerary was the most important part of the trip.

[CLOU]

I have been on the Navigator twice and the Mariner once. I agree that the food quality is similar, although the Mariner has more dining options, which is nice. What no one has mentioned is the cabin differences. The Navigator's least expensive cabins do not have balconies. In the regular balcony suites, the Navigator suites are bigger, with about 300 square feet in the suite with a 50 foot balcony, as opposed to a 250 square foot suite and 50 foot balcony on the Mariner. Since both ships are quite nice, if there are differences, I would let the itinerary dictate which I chose.

[Observer]

I really like Navigator, myself: A somewhat smaller and more intimate ship with a significantly lower passenger load (and thus somewhat more personal service.)

[Dolebludger]

Maineac:

 

I guess to answer your question, I'd have to know what categories of suites you were looking at on these two ships. As mentioned above, the basic suites on the Mariner are about 50 sq. ft. smaller than the Navigator, but all have a balcony. To get a balcony on the Navigator, you have to go from the cat. H to a cat F. And due to the vibrational issues some have with the Navigator, I'd recommend the cat E suites, which are the odd-numbered suites on deck 6, as they are midships to towards the bow. With the Mariner, cat H does just fine, IMO. On the other hand, if either in your party is tall (6' or so, or taller), you should know that most of the Mariner suites have a tub/shower combination with a headroom of only 6' 2" (yes, I measured!) Some of these have been converted to a spacious shower only, but you'd have to check with Regent (or ask your TA to do it) to identify these converted suites.

 

Like others posting above, we like the Navigator for its smaller overall size, and for its larger basic staterooms. We like the Mariner for its (apparently) vibration free operation, and the fact that even the lowest cat. of suites have balconies.

[Maineac]

Many thanks to all of you for your thoughtful insight.

A balcony is a must for us!

The other line we've cruised most often on has been Royal Caribbean.

We've been lucky enough to have Grand Suites and are spoiled by the size of the suites, bathroom and balcony.

If the food and service are pretty equal on both ships, I think the Navigator's itinerary will clinch it for us.

 

Thanks again

[jgn]

The Mariner bathrooms with the new shower-only are indicated in the brochures by a star or a dot. Usually the odd number cabin.

 

Jean

[giustot]

Hi Maineac. The Navigator has a very loyal following. Some people like the smaller ships. I have sailed on both the Navigator and the Mariner.

 

My advice to you is go on the Mariner. In your original posting you mentioned a concern about the dining choices, not the cabins or the bathrooms or the size of the ship.

 

In terms of dining choices the Mariner is the clear winner. While the food on the Navigator may be just as good quality, you have only two choices for dinner, the Compass Rose and Portofino's. And this is just my opinion but I think Portofino's is not as good as the other Regent dining choices.

 

On the Mariner you have a choice of four excellent dining venues every evening. One of them, Signitures, is quite special. If dinng choices are important to you, as they are to me, I'd go with the Mariner. Good luck. Tom.

[kvisf]

We haven't been on Navigator, but something to consider in favor of Mariner is that since all the standard suites have balconies, and the ship is vibration-free, you could consider booking a guarantee instead of a specific suite, and possibly get a significantly better deal. We found the standard suites to be quite comfortable, and the balconies very usable.

[Maineac]

Oh my...New consideration.... I just noticed that the Navigator's March 14 sailing is "kids sail free":eek:

As much as we love children we are leaving ours behind for some much needed adult time.

Does anyone have experience with a "kids sail free" cruise?

[Travelcat2]

You really hit on a sensitive topic. . . I understand fully that when you take a special holiday away from your children -- or, as in my case, I spent half of my life enjoying "children things" and am enjoying myself as an adult. Regent does have special programs for children during school breaks and holidays (for some reason, this tends to not only be summer, Easter and Christmas vacations but a good part of February, March & April). During these times you will find many well-behaved children. You may also find some whose parents are quite uncontrolled and this behavior has been passed on to their children.

 

In my opinion, you will find more children on the cruise you are looking at ("Kids Sail Free"). . . this would certainly be a decision maker/breaker for us. Although we love the Navigator, the areas around the library, computer room/game room and the Navigator bar are very small -- when children play in this area, it is particularly disturbing. Since the Voyager is larger, it has more public space -- and almost double the restaurants so it accommodates children a bit easier.

 

Not sure if you are committed to the March date -- if not, check school calendars to see when President's Week, Winter Breaks and Spring breaks occur next year.:)

[gillianrose]

Regent does have special programs for children during school breaks and holidays (for some reason, this tends to not only be summer, Easter and Christmas vacations but a good part of February, March & April).

 

No matter how well behaved children are, they tend to use swimming pools, etc. more often and stay in the pools longer. On some lines, they are found to inhabit the hot tubs, even when it is posted that they may not.

 

We would like to be able to cruise during holiday breaks from school without having a lot of children on board. Is that possible to do on Regent?

[BILLP1]

That would be a deal breaker for us. We were on the Mariner last year during a Kids sail free cruise. There were only about a dozen kids but they were everywhere as well as their I could care less about anyone but us parents. Never again...

[gillianrose]

That would be a deal breaker for us. We were on the Mariner last year during a Kids sail free cruise. There were only about a dozen kids but they were everywhere as well as their I could care less about anyone but us parents. Never again...

 

Yes, likely a deal breaker for us, too, especially on an upscale line that doesn't have an adults-only area. P&O has two adults-only ships, but they don't have the advantage of being smokefree. We want a smokefree cruise, but one that is free from children hogging the pools.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

We were on the same cruise that BILLP1 mentioned and there was one especially out-of-control family. But we rarely saw them as we were ashore from the first tender until the last, usually.

 

We don't use pool area, except maybe to grab a drink or two at the pool bar :D We did not quite grasp the concept of laying out all day under a tropical sun and fostering skin cancer....

 

We only saw the little mons..., uhhhh, darlings a couple of times: rolling up and down the aisles during one of the shows and holding a screaming contest near the internet cafe....

 

Plus we got an earful of them on one leg of our flight home.

 

Regent is really taking a gamble with those non-holiday "kids sail free" promotions. Doesn't seem worth alienating their prime customers (us old grumps) for the sake of filling 2 or 3 more cabins per cruise. I wonder if they read these boards and realize the true impact of those promotions?

 

All that being said, most of the families on-board were well behaved, and having a few smiling youngsters aboard was actually nice. It really was mostly one family that was a problem. Regent should have done a better job controlling them. I think a visit by the captain or first officer, in their impressive uniforms, would have gone a long way in instilling a little discipline :D

[ChatKat in Ca.]

If you are coming from RCCL and are used to more activity, then you might prefer the Mariner. I love both ships, but the Navigator is much quieter in terms of social activity because of it's layout and there are less passengers to interact with.

 

Service and Food are about equal. I prefer the layout of the Mariner over both the Voyager and the Navigator. The area off of the library/club.com on Mariner is my favorite promenade of the ships public areas. They all have charm.

[janise]

we will be sailing in March 08 with our "little mons.....ahhh darlings" - two of them - both 13 - they will be well behaved, polite, courteous and friendly - they will also have fun, use the pool, make new friends and most likely laugh a lot - i sincerely hope that a couple of young teenagers acting like this would not ruin your cruise experience -

[AtA]

Oh my...New consideration.... I just noticed that the Navigator's March 14 sailing is "kids sail free":eek:

As much as we love children we are leaving ours behind for some much needed adult time.

Does anyone have experience with a "kids sail free" cruise?

Like you when I'm on vacation I want my time alone with my SO and sans children. I was on the Voyager New Years cruise that had quite a few children...at least we were told there were 25 kids on board. My SO and I never saw them except the last day on the island where they were off in their own separate area. Don't let that be a deal breaker for you. You will not see kids hogging the pool, running through halls screeching, annoying adults, etc. The staff does a terrific job keeping them entertained and away from the adults.

 

I haven't been on the Mariner, but have been on the Voyager and the Navigator. I loved them both. I found that most times, even with the specialty restaurants, Compass Rose worked just fine. They are more than willing to make a special meal, or dessert for you, so don't let the lack of restaurants be a deal breaker for you. (Order the night before the grand marnier souffle. ;) )

 

Personally I loved the intimacy of the Navigator and I was in a balcony cabin on 6 and thought it was great. You've gotten great advice to book a cabin towards the bow of the ship and I loved the choice of a tub or a separate shower stall available in the bathrooms on the Navigator.

 

You can't go wrong with either ship. It will be an entirely different experience for you since you're coming from Royal Caribbean. Personally I can't imagine being on such large ships. (The largest ship I ever was on was 1200 pax.)

[AtA]

No matter how well behaved children are, they tend to use swimming pools, etc. more often and stay in the pools longer. On some lines, they are found to inhabit the hot tubs, even when it is posted that they may not.

 

We would like to be able to cruise during holiday breaks from school without having a lot of children on board. Is that possible to do on Regent?

Yes. I sat by the pool most sea days on both the Navigator and the Voyager and never saw children inhabiting hot tubs, pools, etc. I'm not sure if they went when I was still sleeping, or later or what but it was never a problem.

[Dolebludger]

We've been on a number of RSSC cruises, and on only one occasion were children fairly numerous on the cruise -- and that was on the now-retired Diamond on one of this lines' "kids sail free" cruises. I never saw any of the children do anything wrong (though some fellow guests said they did). But the relatively large number of children cruising as the third guest in the parent's room did play havoc with the passenger to crew ratio. You see, on these cruises, children are guests, too. They place workload on the service crew as we all do. RSSC didn't add service crew to take care of the added guest load. As a result, service wasn't up to the standards of a luxury line like RSSC. It was more on the level with NCL due to no added crew to handle the added workload.

 

This is only my personal opinion, but I avoid "kids sail free" cruises. Not because I don't like children around -- actually I do. But only because the sheer added number of guests reduces the quality of service. It would be so, regardless of the age of the additional guests.

[Island Cruiser]

There have been children aboard most of the Regent cruises we have taken and in only one instance was there a problem. The crew programs the kids separately and it all works quite well. Nontheless, we would generally stay away from future "kids cruise free" cruises because there is always a first time.

 

Oh, by the way, the one time there was a problem, on the Voyager, in the Baltics in 2003, there was a bratty little girl who would walk into the elevator on one of the upper floors and proceed to hit all the buttons. When politely admonished by one of the inconvenienced passengers she replied: "I can do anything I want because my daddy's the captain (Dag)."

 

PATRICK

[AtA]

 

Oh, by the way, the one time there was a problem, on the Voyager, in the Baltics in 2003, there was a bratty little girl who would walk into the elevator on one of the upper floors and proceed to hit all the buttons. When politely admonished by one of the inconvenienced passengers she replied: "I can do anything I want because my daddy's the captain (Dag)."

 

PATRICK

And after that if I saw the captain, i would have reported nicely what his daughter said to the passenger. My guess is she would have been admonished for doing so. Like any parent, if the child is doing something and the parent is not around, how is the parent to know if no one says anything?

[Dolebludger]

All this talk about kids on RSSC ships leads me to a question, based on my Diamond experience posted above. Does RSSC now "capacity control" the number of "kids" who are cruising free, thereby limiting their numbers on each sailing and avoiding the strain on the service crew that I witnessed?